Northwest Vista College Looks at LEED—Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design

A diverse group of NVC administrators, faculty, students, Alamo Colleges facilities personnel, and architects and project management firms that work with Northwest Vista are starting to lead the college’s Go Green efforts. Their first step—a recent workshop with H. Jay Enck of CxGBS, Commissioning and Green Building Solutions, Inc., a nationally recognized leader in building commissioning (quality assurance process) and the application of sustainable development principles.
The group started identifying and outlining a process for earning a LEED (Leadership in Environment and Energy Design) certification for several of the college’s buildings. The LEED certification, which is issued by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), is an internationally recognized certification system that measures how well a building or community performs in energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts.

LEED certification can be achieved in several ways. One is to build LEED principles into new construction. Another is the LEED for Existing Buildings (EB) Rating System, which helps building owners and operators measure operations, improvements and maintenance on a consistent scale, with the goal of optimizing operations while minimizing environmental impacts. 

LEED EB addresses whole-building cleaning and maintenance issues (including chemical use), recycling programs, exterior maintenance programs, and systems upgrades. It can be applied both to existing buildings seeking LEED certification for the first time and to projects previously certified under LEED for New Construction, Schools, or Core & Shell.  

According to Alamo Colleges Associate Vice Chancellor for Facilities John W. Strybos, many of the buildings at Northwest Vista are good candidates for LEED Certification. “In great part, many of the qualifications for LEED certification are similar to good building practices, practices that we have been applying as we’ve further developed the campuses. Northwest Vista leadership is particularly sensitive to environmental concerns, so we feel that we are in a good position for LEED certification.”

At the two day session, attendees underwent a rigorous and highly participatory exercise in which LEED certification suggestions ran the gamut from alternative transportation to using environmentally friendly products. Among the many suggestions—going paperless, improving energy conservation programs, using and producing solar energy, minimizing use of natural resources, optimizing existing systems and creating awareness of environment friendly practices.
Session facilitator and green activist H. Jay Enck advocated a change of our common daily practices to preserve precious, difficult to replace resources, recycle used materials into new products, and improve our efficiency for our economic and social well-being.

The next step in the process is a plan to be created by CxGBS to guide Northwest Vista into the actual process of applying for LEED certification. Once certification is achieved, owners keep their buildings green by using tools such as measurement and verification, and training operations personnel in preventive maintenance, warranty requirements and green housekeeping procedures.